I'm trying to connect to a AB Micro 850 controller and am having issues. This is my first time trying to program one. I plugged in a USB cable to the USB port but nothing happened. It's my understanding that a "Found New Hardware" box should appear to install the drivers. I tried all my other USB ports but still nothing. Then I got another USB cable and tried that with all of the USB ports. Still nothing. I tried using a null modem cable with a 1761-CBL-PM02 cable in the serial port, setting up a DF1 driver but still nothing. Finally I connected a crossover cable to the ethernet port, set up my PC static IP to 169.254.100.200 with subnet 255.255.0.0 (as advised per another help thread) and scanned with the ethernet/IP driver. Nothing. And not only nothing, I don't even get the green link LED to come on when there is a good link connection. Am I still doing something wrong? Or did I just get a bad controller? The power light is green and the FAULT and MS lights are flashing red, which I assume is a fault because there is no program loaded. All help is appreciated. Thanks.

I've never used a AB Micro 850 but I think you need to use Connected Components Workbench (CCW) to set up communications to it. Open CCW, then go to the Communications tab, then Configure Drivers. Choose the driver you need under Available Driver Types. My guess is you need to set up a Virtual Backplane driver but not 100% sure. Hope this helps.

On a 850 or 820 you can just use Ethernet, they are default dynamic so your router will send it a IP address and using RSLinx you will see it once you setup your driver... then in your project just set the IP address to what your router set it to

1. Reboot your laptop.
2. Plug into the USB port on the 850.
3. The "found new hardware" box should pop up, let it do its thing. Once finished, you should see the 850 under the USB driver in RSLinx.
4. If "found new hardware" doesn't pop up, open RSLinx anyways and check to make sure the 850 isn't there already for whatever reason.
5. If none of these work, try a different laptop and make sure you're not using a bad cable.

Also, try the ethernet port using a regular patch cable, rather than a crossover.

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately none of the suggestions helped. I tried connecting both to a router but it didn't see the controller. The link light still doesn't come on. I tried rebooting the laptop and using all the USB ports with 2 different cables. Still nothing. Tried using a regular patch cable. No luck. I think I might just have a bad controller.

It's going to sound stupid, but was the USB cable fully inserted? The ports seem to be tight (not necessarily a bad thing), and sometimes require a bit more effort to plug and unplug.

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Jordan

Any man that can hitch the length and breadth of the Galaxy, rough it, slum it, struggle against terrible odds, win through and still know where his towel is, is clearly a man to be reckoned with.
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So thanks for all the suggestions. We finally found the problem. It turns out that the controller needs a full 24V for the communications to work. We have an adjustable power supply in the shop and it was set at 12V instead of 24V. So the power indicator light was on and the fault lights were flashing, however the comms wouldn't work. So all is working correctly now. Chalk another one up to human error.